Falling After Wonderland
by Neko-ane
Summary: After an accident, Alice finds herself once again in Wonderland. But things have changed, and everything is warped... Can she, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse eradicate the evil that is consuming their world?
1. Chapter 1: Return

**Well, hi, folks. You might recognize me if you've ever read any Fushigi Yuugi fanfics. If not, well, I can't say I blame you. It's getting to be a real pain to sort through all the junk fics to find the good ones these days.**

**Hopefully this will be one of the good ones.**

**Now, a note: Since there is no specific time mentioned for the books, this will be a contemporary fic. This fic is _not_ based on any particular piece of the rather large mine of information and inspiration involving Alice in Wonderland. There will be themes and elements woven in from the books, the various movies that I've seen, and American McGee's Alice. For those of you who have no idea what Alice is about... well... It's Goth. It's gore. It's twisted.**

**It's the inspiration for much of what this story is about.**

**Sort of.**

**Welcome, dear reader, to Wonderland.**

**Chapter One: Return**

**.:The "Real" World:.**

Wheels screeched as a midnight blue Sedan spun on a patch of black ice. Alice had just enough time to open her mouth to scream before she was cut off and a blossom of agony exploded at her temple. Sound slowly drained away, her vision became blurry, as if she was viewing the world through thick gauze. For a moment, it seemed as if everything was wavering, lines becoming unclear and changing, writhing to make new shapes.

Then there was bright white.

Then nothing.

** .:Wonderland:.**

Alice opened her mouth to cough and gagged as she received a mouthful of leafmould. She lay still for a moment, trying to remember what had just happened. All she could remember was panic. As for what had caused it... that was a mystery to her.

She groaned and rolled over, instantly regretting the movement as searing pain pierced her head. Alice reached up and touched her temple, feeling something warm and sticky there. For lack of anything more sensible to do, she groaned again and opened her eyes. The sky above - a muddy-looking grey, she noted - was barely visible through a thick thatch of thorny branches.

"Where am I...?"

Alice gritted her teeth and pushed herself into a sitting position. She turned her head to each side slowly and painfully. She was sitting squarely in the middle of a path of grass. The path was made up of a sort of checkerboard of light and dark green squares. It looked very odd, going through the middle of such an overgrown forest.

At least she knew where she was, Alice mused. Back in Wonderland. She wondered briefly at the thorns that had sprouted all over the trees and the way the path seemed to be very unkempt, the checkerboard pattern barely discernible.

Something crashed through the underbrush nearby, sending Alice to her feet altogether too quickly, causing her to grasp her head and shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them again a Red Knight, horse snuffling excitedly, was in the path in front of her.

His armor was bloodstained and his lance glistened with viscous liquid.

Alice's eyes widened, but she stayed put. Nothing was what it appeared to be in Wonderland, she knew. Like the Cheshire Cat had once said to her, sometimes places that look nice turn out not to be safe, and places that look nasty turn out to be safest of all. Perhaps this applied to people in Wonderland too.

Then she remembered what her life in the real world had taught her. All twenty-odd years crashed down on her, thoroughly crushing any ideas that this silent, gore-covered figure could possibly be a protector.

She tensed for a moment, then bolted just as the lance jabbed out viciously into the air she had just vacated.

The Knight finally made a sound, a guttural, harsh laugh. He spurred his horse into a gallop after her.

Something that not many people know is that a human can outrun a horse for a short distance.

Unfortunately for Alice, she was still dizzy from the bump to her head and couldn't run as fast as she would have normally, and the forest was further slowing her down by catching and tearing at her skin and clothing.

A root seemingly appeared out of nowhere and tripped her up. Alice fell hard, lungs screaming in pain as all the air was forced out of them. She lay there dazed for a moment. The sound of hoof beats nearby caused her to force herself up, but she could only manage a shambling crouch of a run.

The Red Knight appeared in front of her and began advancing his mount toward the woman slowly, obviously enjoying the look of terror on her face.

Alice backed up against a large tree, shoulder blades trying frantically to dig their way through the tree in blind terror.

The Red Knight raised his lance.

Alice turned her head away, eyes squeezed shut in anticipation of the agony to come...

...and then she was falling. She looked up just in time to see a crack sealing up above her head, and she realized the tree had swallowed her up.

"Why is this happening?" she asked herself as she fell. Alice always felt better when she was talking, whether to herself or some unfortunate inanimate object nearby. "Wonderland never tried to hurt me before... what's going on?"

She looked down, and screamed.

Below her was a gaping maw with sap-slicked teeth and a writhing tongue of roots.

A crack opened up below her and a pair of maroon-clad arms thrust through, yellow-gloved hands open to snatch Alice out of harms way. They closed on one of her arms and pulled hard, hauling the woman out of the crack just before it closed with a disgruntled snap. Alice's momentum bowled over her rescuer, causing both of them to tumble head over heels to land in a heap some ways away from the tree.

Alice found herself looking down into an oddly familiar face. She couldn't quite place who this man was, although she was certain she'd met him before.

Then she caught sight of the large grey top-hat two feet away. It had a piece of card in it that said: "In This Style 10/6."

"Hatter!" she exclaimed, jumping up and pulling the Mad Hatter to his feet, giving him a relieved hug. Then she remembered herself and what had just happened, retreating to a safe distance from him in case he decided to boil her in a giant teapot or some such nonsense.

The Hatter, who was quite unused to such displays of affection from the Dormouse or the March Hare, was blushing a rather rosy shade of red.

Alice tilted her head to the side. "I say, Hatter, what's happened to you? You've changed since I last saw you."

And indeed he had. When Alice had last been to Wonderland as a child, he'd been a rather odd-looking character with an overly-large nose and ludicrously exaggerated buckteeth. His clothing had been a lime-green coat whose coattails had trailed the ground when he walked, and a suit made of lilac-and-white checkers.

Now, however, formerly frumpy orange hair was smoothed down into shoulder-length waves, his nose, while still thoroughly European, was not nearly so large or unattractive as it had once been, and his buckteeth were much less pronounced. He was significantly taller, as well, now standing a head above Alice instead of being the child's height he had been.

Hatter smoothed out some wrinkles in his maroon coat and black slacks. "You've changed too, Alice. As you've grown up, so has Wonderland. I must say, it _was_ a bit of a shock to wake up one morning and see _this_ in the reflection of my teaspoon. It _is_ rather convenient, though, to be able to see over hedges," he admitted with a smile.

Alice smiled back, beginning to trust her old mad friend. The smile faded as her temple began to ache again. "Hatter, what's happened to Wonderland?"

The Hatter's bright smile faded a little as well, and he picked up his hat (which was, incidentally, the only thing about him that hadn't changed) and placed it on his head. "Let's get that cleaned up, Alice, and I'll explain everything," he said, holding out a gloved hand to her.

Alice took the Hatter's hand and allowed him to lead her through the forest, noticing that as they continued forward the trees started to become less and less sinister in appearance. After what seemed like only a few minutes they broke into a clearing.

An iron fence surrounded a garden, in the middle of which was a long table permanently laid out for tea and an oddly tilted house.

Alice broke into a grin at the familiar sight, and she laughed openly at the sight of the March Hare's large furry ears poking up over a bush. The ears twitched and then disappeared. The Hare reappeared at a wooden gate in the fence. He threw it open and bounded out, sweeping Alice into a hug and spinning around once before setting her back on her feet.

"Alice!" The March Hare frowned as he caught sight of the blood caked on the side of her face. "Oh, dear. This will never do! Hatter, what have you been doing with our poor girl?"

' "Our poor girl"?' Alice wondered at the Hare's choice of words.

"It wasn't me, Marchy! You know I could never hurt our Alice! One of those cursed Carnivorous trees got at her!"

Alice could see that they were warming up for one of their infamous rows and interrupted. "Actually, I don't know how I got this... I woke up with it."

Neither seemed to hear her, but the Hatter grabbed her hand again and pulled her into the house, mumbling something about "get you cleaned up, then he can't blame this on me".

Alice had never seen the inside of the Mad Hatter's house before. It was quite mad. Everything was cut in half, as if a giant razor had gone right through the room. Photographs, paintings, furniture, everything was cut perfectly in half. She wondered if the whole house was like this, or just the parlor. She noticed a staircase leading to upper rooms that was comfortingly whole. She was lead past this into a small kitchen, which was in a black-and-white checker motif. At least everything appeared to be whole in this room.

The Hatter pulled a chair from a small table and pushed Alice gently into it. He busied himself running a bowl of hot water from the tap and finding clean bandages in one of the cupboards. Alice caught glimpses of oddly-shaped teapots and cups in many of the cupboards he opened. Hatter grumbled to himself quietly the whole time, only quieting when he turned to her with the hot water and a washcloth.

"This may sting a bit," he said, setting the bowl on the table to Alice's right and kneeling in front of her with a serious look on his face. He dipped the tip of the cloth into the bowl and began cleaning the blood off Alice's face.

As Alice allowed herself to be doctored she found herself trying to look at anything in the room but Hatter's face. In this close proximity she couldn't help but notice that he smelled pleasantly of herbal tea and sugar. That was curious, since she had never noticed any real smells when she was here in her childhood. Everything had smelled artificial, like the things had heard of what they should smell like and were trying to the best of their ability to get it right. Somehow, this time everything seemed more real.

'Perhaps it's because I'm older, and know what things should be like," she mused.

Alice winced as the Hatter gently started to clean the cut on her temple, eyes flicking involuntarily forward and meeting his. The hazel-green eyes that met hers were filled with concern and intense concentration. She tore her gaze away, feeling her cheeks stain pink.

'Silly girl,' she silently chided herself.

Hatter bandaged her head carefully, then stood up, taking the bowl and bandages up from the table. "There. All done," he said with a slight smile, taking the bowl to the sink and dumping the red-stained water down the drain. He wrung out the cloth a couple of times, then draped it over the faucet. "So, Alice, how have you been?" he asked, placing the bandages into a completely different cupboard than he had found them in and turning to watch her expectantly.

"Well... it's a long story..."

"Then let's bring in the Dormouse and Marchy. They simply adore stories." He lead her to the parlor, indicating that she could sit anywhere she pleased, then went out to get the Hare and Dormouse.

Alice looked around and finally settled on sitting on half a rather large couch, the half still big enough for two people.

The others entered the room and settled down, the Dormouse curling up on the rug, the Hare taking a half an overstuffed armchair, and the Hatter sitting next to Alice.

The Hare opened his mouth to speak. "Now, Alice, tell us what's happened to you since you were last here."

"Wait a moment! Hatter promised he'd tell me what's happened here!"

The Mad Hatter smiled sadly. "I'm afraid we need to know what's happened in your life before we'll know for certain."

Alice frowned. "Oh, well, in that case... I'll tell you..."

**Look out for the next chapter: Alice's Story**


	2. Chapter 2: Alice's Story

**The story continues…**

**A note: I own nothing but my imagination.**

**Chapter 2: Alice's Story**

"Well, I suppose I shall begin at the beginning and end at the ending," said Alice. She cleared her throat, and continued:

"Not long after my trip through the Looking-Glass, my parents decided to move the entire family to North America. Some sort of business reason, although my father never did bother to explain it to us. Years passed uneventfully, I continued my lessons at all of the best schools America had to offer, in many different States -"

"States? Emotional or physical?" the March Hare interrupted.

Alice laughed. "No, no, not like that. Hmm… How to explain… America is one country, but it is also split up into a bunch of little countries."

"Well, no wonder they're in such a state!"

"Marchy, do let her get on with the story," the Hatter chided.

"Oh, alright..."

Alice unfolded the story of her adolescence to her three surreal friends. There were a few interruptions when the Dormouse would have to be woken or the Hare lost interest. The Hatter, however, was strangely quiet, seemingly absorbing every detail into the whirling, spinning madness of his mind. I cannot, however, recount the whole of her history, seeing as much of it was quite dull and inconsequential to the story.

I will, however, tell you this:

When Alice was twenty, she became engaged to a young man named Gregory. They were deeply in love, and Alice began to believe that she could trust him with the secret of Wonderland. She debated about telling him for many years, and on the day before they were to be wed, she decided she had to tell Gregory everything. After all, where was the sense in marrying someone who didn't know everything about you?

So she sat Gregory down in the parlor, and took his hand, and looked into his warm mahogany eyes, and she told him everything. Alice spoke for hours, telling him of the Duchess and her baby that turned to a pig, of the Mad Hatter's tea party, and the Cheshire Cat. She even fancied she saw a flicker of pride in Gregory's eyes when she told him about her becoming a Queen in Looking-Glass land.

After Alice was finished, he stood, gave her a tender hug, and said quite calmly that he was going to have her committed to the nearest insane asylum.

The Hatter chose to interrupt for the first time here:

"An asylum? Why ever would he do that? It's quite obvious that you're mad!"

Alice was taken aback. "Well, yes, that's the point, isn't it?"

"No, it's not the point at all! An _asylum_ is for people who are sane!" Hatter said in tones that made it quite obvious that this was a well-known fact.

"He's quite right, you know," the March Hare added.

Alice sighed. "Well, where _I_ come from, they're for people who have lost their minds."

"Why don't they go out and look for them, then?" asked the Hare.

Alice chose to ignore the Hare's remark and continue her story. "After that, of course, I never saw him again. The people from the asylum, I assume, showed up at my flat's door the next morning to find it quite empty. I had gone back to my mother's home, although I could never fully explain to her what caused Gregory and I to have a falling-out.

"Two years have passed since then, and I've never bothered with relationships again, and I do believe I'm a good deal better for it."

The Mad Hatter looked troubled. "No, no, you've left something out. You must have done."

"Well... Yes..." Alice trailed off, reluctant to go on.

"Yes?" the Dormouse asked.

"Alice, you must tell us," Hatter urged.

Alice drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Alright... After we moved, Father and Mother started to have frequent rows. They'd shout and scream, and, sometimes, throw things at each other. My sister and I... well, we'd stuff cotton in our ears and hide under the quilts on our beds, but we could still hear. It got worse and worse, but they'd always make an effort to treat us well, and never fight around us.

"Then... one day, Father had had a particularly difficult day at his new job, and when he got home he found I had broken a vase and..." She mumbled the last few words.

"What?" the Hare asked.

"...he hit me," Alice repeated in a small voice.

"Oh, Alice... that explains everything." The Hatter's hazel eyes clouded slightly. "Did you know, the Red King and Queen have always represented your parents? We could always have a vague idea of what was going on in your life by how they treated each other. I'm afraid that the Queen has gone quite mad."

"I thought madness was a normal thing, here?" Alice asked, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Ah, but this is another type of madness. This is a... a... _dark_ madness. She's gone to war with the King and Queen of Hearts, and had her husband beheaded."

"What about the White Queen?"

The Hatter waved a hand in dismissal. "Oh, they've _always_ been at war."

"Oh dear."

The March Hare chuckled softly. "Oh, don't worry, the Whites and Reds never kill each other. They just capture."

"Not anymore, Marchy. I've been out in the dark parts of the woods. It seems that everything beyond our little sanctuary has become twisted," Hatter said softly.

"Everything?" Alice asked, eyes wide, a thrill of fear and curiosity suffusing her mind.

"You were nearly eaten by a tree, weren't you?"

"Well, yes, but I've also fallen down rabbit holes and walked through mirrors. Not to mention changing size more often than... than... anything!"

The Hatter and the Hare gave her a blank look. The Dormouse probably would have joined in, simply for the sake of doing something, but he had fallen asleep again.

"My dear, size is all relative," Hatter said kindly. "My second cousin, in example, is quite tall, but my great aunt is very short."

Alice sighed in exasperation. "So why am _I _here?"

"That, I can't guess," the Hatter said regretfully. Then he brightened up, grinning and showing off his buckteeth. "I know someone who can, though!"

"Who?"

"Why, the Cheshire Cat, of course!"

**To be continued in the next chapter: The Know-It-All Grin**


End file.
